Can't Isolate a Squaling Noise

[jbone]

Hi guys,

Lately my computer has developed an occasional high-pitched squealing-type noise. At first it was very faint and only happened while playing games. I noticed that while running 3dMark06, the squeal would get VERY loud but only during the loading screens between tests. Sometimes it happens during loading screens in other games; with Morrowind it happens at the title screen but not as much during gameplay. However with Titan Quest it is continually present during gameplay but not too loud; just enough that its noticeable. It does not happen at all when running OCCT torture tests.

It is not the fans, since I stopped them all and no change to the problem was noted.

I thought it might be the video cards. I use two 4890's in CF. I physically removed one of them; restarted; this did not change the problem. Then I switched that one card with the other I had removed; again, no change. Put both cards back in; still no change. So, I think the GPU's are out of the picture.

I removed the sound card as well... as expected, no change to the problem.

I am now suspicious of the power supply, since as far as I can tell... the noise is coming from that general area. But, it's hard to pinpoint those high-pitched whines.

The noises seem to pair up with HDD activity; and 95% of the occurrence is when video-related tasks are running. I hear small spurts of it during computer start up; with Win 7 loaded but no programs running, the noise is not present.

My next guess would be a motherboard capacitor but I'm not sure how to tell. I'm not really sure what to do next to isolate the problem any further. I don't have an extra PSU or MB on hand to try swapping out with.

Computer is custom built; seven months old.

Core i7 920, running at 3.6 GHz. (resetting to stock speed does not affect the problem)

ASUS MB, P6T SE
6 GB OCZ DDR3 1600 RAM
2x HD4890 GPU's
Tuniq 1000W PSU
Samsung 1TB HDD
Antec 900 case
Windows 7 Professional, 64 bit

If anyone has suggestions on how I can further isolate things before randomly replacing stuff, I'm all ears. Thanks!

 

[nickbits]

my guess is power supply

 

[bigboxes]

my guess is power supply

Yup. Your psu is slowly dying.

 

[jbone]

OK, that's kinda what I figured. Good thing it is still under full warranty. I'll get this taken care of and see where it leaves me.

Thanks for the help.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

my guess is power supply

ding ding!

 

[redmousecompute]

i have a noisy CPU fan. I keep it quiet my smacking the case hehe

 

[NoQuarter]

The inductors on my motherboard emit a high pitched frequency when I do a lot of screen activity (like dragging a window around). My old laptop used to do the same thing when the wireless adapter was busy. The pitch adjusts with the screen activity (and wireless activity on the laptop) so I'm 90% sure in my case it's the mobo and not the PSU as the PSU shouldn't adjust frequency like that I would think.


I think in your case since it's very situational it may be the mobo as well..
An option to help test would be to take the PSU from the case and run it externally as far from the mobo as the power cords will take you, stick your head between 'em and see if you can tell if the sound is coming from your right or left.

 

[NoQuarter]

So I looked into it some more since I sorta have the same problem.. apparently it's usually not a sign of a failure risk.. it's usually cheap or improperly installed inductors, not enough capacitors (or some bad caps), or too dirty of power coming in.

One thing you can try a UPS to clean up the power but I'm too cheap to try that.

Google says you can take a straw to your ear and point it at each cap/inductor to find where the squeal is coming from heh. Then you can coat the parts that are squealing with hot glue or clear nail polish, or wood glue to reduce the vibrating causing the squeal. Apparently you have to really dowse it if you use nail polish. I'm gonna try out hot glue I think, next time the noise bugs me - I know I've seen some inductors in my old parts that were completely covered in the stuff but never realized why.

But if you're still in warranty I'd probably just RMA the part.


edit: also, meant to say earlier.. hard drives make a really high pitched squeal when they are dying, but should be distinguishable from the electronic noise caps/inductors make.

 

[daniel49]

So I looked into it some more since I sorta have the same problem.. apparently it's usually not a sign of a failure risk.. it's usually cheap or improperly installed inductors, not enough capacitors (or some bad caps), or too dirty of power coming in.

Google says you can take a straw to your ear and point it at each cap/inductor to find where the squeal is coming from heh.

pics:=)

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

It sounds like it's your motherboard. This is a frequent issue on GIGABYTE boards.